Gay families are in sync with scout values

By Iowa City Press-Citizen

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For the past two years, an 11-member special committee has been reviewing whether the Boy Scouts of America - a British-founded organization that, in America, has become as iconic as Mom and Apple Pie - should continue its policy of excluding gays and lesbians.

Several other major youth organizations - including Camp Fire and the equally iconic Girl Scouts of the USA - already have changed their policies and now welcome gays and lesbians as members and leaders.

And several members of the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors - including Jim Turley, chief executive officer of Ernst & Young and Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T - have said publicly that they would be in favor of changing the policy, although they want the change to come from within the organization.

That's why - along with the recent, well-publicized efforts by Iowa City's own Eagle Scout, Zach Wahls, and others within the scouting organization - we had hoped the national scout leadership would decide on its own to become a more open and affirming organization.

Earlier this week, however, scouting leaders announced that the committee unanimously had decided to preserve the organization's long-standing policy to exclude gays and lesbians.

“The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” said the scouts' chief executive, Bob Mazzuca. “We fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society.”

Twelve years ago, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the Boy Scouts of America could continue to exclude from membership people whom they thought did not share the organization's values. The decision has been controversial and divisive ever since.

But it need not be. If Mazzuca and the committee members really believe that gays and lesbians are out of step with the values being taught by scouting, then they should spend some time reading Wahls' memoir of being raised by Terry Wahls and Jackie Reger: “My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength and What Makes a Family.” (We still prefer Wahls' original idea for the subtitle: “Everything I Needed to Know about Gay Marriage I Learned in Boy Scouts.”)

In the book, Wahls describes in detail how his mothers and his scout leaders worked together over the years to teach him to be obedient, trustworthy, kind, friendly, reverent, helpful, courteous, cheerful, loyal, clean, thrifty and brave - the very qualities and values that form the heart of the scout law.

Eventually, we hope that this well respected - even beloved - organization eventually recognizes the value of diversity and embraces, rather than excludes, its gay and lesbian members and leaders.

In the meantime, those scout members and leaders who disagree with the national organization's decision will have to take solace in one of the observations Wahls makes toward the end of his memoir.

“At the national level, the Boy Scouts of America does indeed discriminate against gays ..., but the implementation of national policy is left to the discretion of local packs and troops,” Wahls wrote. “In my experience, and I understand that mine is not universal, the folks I met couldn't have cared less about the sexual orientation of my parents, or me for that matter. I am not willing, however, to discard my entire experience, the lessons learned, and the values I lived because of two flaws in the organization.”